123) Chapter 19. M-Me Too……! (1)

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No, Rua, it’s not that, it’s not like I was trying to hide it or anything, it’s just that because of personal circumstances I couldn’t help it, ah———

Ah, ah, ah, ah?

Nam Jinwoo’s mouth, which had been trying to spill out all kinds of excuses, was suddenly sealed shut.

It wasn’t that she had closed her mouth herself because she had nothing to say. Her face had literally been physically blocked.

Pitch-black darkness suddenly covering her vision. And the pressure pressing against her face.

But that pressure wasn’t hard or cold. It was soft, squishy enough to sink in when pressed, not cold at all but rather warm enough to feel slightly hot, and somehow comforting.

Her nose had been completely clogged with streaming mucus, and yet strangely, she felt like she could smell some kind of scent. Fabric softener? No, it was fragrant, but different from that. Honestly speaking, if judged by smell alone, it probably wasn’t a scent that could simply be called pleasant. Because it wasn’t some artificially pleasant smell from perfume, shampoo, or fabric softener.

It was a much more natural smell than that.

A smell that only felt especially fragrant because she knew exactly what kind of smell it was.

In other words, Nam Jinwoo had already instinctively grasped the identity of this scent.

Honestly, it would have been stranger not to know. After all, Rua had been standing right in front of her.

Among the girls who spent time with Nam Jinwoo, the only one who naturally spoke to her first and casually asked about her daily life without any particular guard was Rua.

No, more than that. Right before Nam Jinwoo’s vision became completely filled by this large, soft, squishy, warm existence, she had clearly felt Rua grabbing her wrist and pulling her closer.

So.

Ah—————

That’s right.

Nam Jinwoo’s face had become completely buried between Rua’s breasts.

Honestly, she had imagined it before. Somehow getting exposed as a girl, the wall between men and women disappearing, and Rua treating Nam Jinwoo the same way she treated Soi, Chae-yi, or Hyeonji—as just another girl.

Linking arms together, holding hands, hugging each other tightly—

But what scared her was the fact that she had hidden something so important all this time.

Rua was upright.

She was the kind of person who would immediately run alone toward a villain threatening the lives of other children as hostages without even hesitating.

How would someone like Rua see her, someone deliberately living in the boys’ dorm while even deceiving everyone about her gender?

Would she think she was some absurd pervert? Honestly, it wouldn’t even be strange if she did—

But those worries had now been completely wiped from her mind. No, more than the worries, even the excuses she had desperately prepared somehow had all been blown away too.

What entered that completely empty head instead was the violent smell piercing through nostrils that should have been blocked shut.

A somewhat damp smell, slightly salty, somehow humid.

Ah, right.

The sun had risen quite high now, and by noon the sunlight pouring down was hot enough to actually be called scorching. The daytime temperature was gradually climbing toward the mid-to-high twenties Celsius.

So maybe Rua had sweated a little. Especially with a body like that, naturally sweat would gather between her breasts too. Human beings naturally perceive their own body heat as hot.

And right now, Nam Jinwoo’s nose was wedged right between them.

No matter how she inhaled, the only thing filling her lungs was Rua’s scent. That smell, which should have been nothing more than sweat, absolutely no longer felt like merely that from the moment she realized exactly whose arms were embracing her.

Whenever she opened her mouth to breathe in, even that mouth became blocked. Rua’s soft chest seemed almost to possess a will of its own, covering every opening where space formed.

Whether she inhaled through her mouth or exhaled—

Ah, ah.

She wanted to say something, but nothing came out. Rua was saying something too, but her ears buzzed loudly, making it hard to hear properly.

Rua’s hand patted Nam Jinwoo’s back. Like soothing a small child.

Her body trembled violently at that touch.

Was it because Rua’s chest was so warm that the rest of her body felt cold in comparison?

No, it was because they were that close. Close enough that Rua could tightly embrace Nam Jinwoo while patting her back.

Not only her face buried in Rua’s chest, but her body too.

Rua always wore uniforms tailored tightly to fit her body, so Nam Jinwoo already knew how incredible her figure was.

But confirming it by pressing stomach against stomach like this was completely different from simply seeing it with her eyes.

She could almost feel the ribcage beneath Rua’s breasts. Regrettably, the thick bandages wrapped around her own chest made it hard to feel properly.

Rua’s warm body clung tightly against her entire body, and she was recognizing it through pure sensation.

Somehow, inside her body felt ticklish, and she wanted to remain pressed together like this forever.

Was it because it had been too long since someone had held her in their arms? Because it had been far too long since she had embraced someone like this, smelled them, exchanged warmth with them, she wished this feeling would never disappear—

“H-Hey, Nam Jinwoo?”

“……!”

She hadn’t been able to process what Rua had said earlier, but somehow she managed to hear at least those words.

Puhah, she breathed while hurriedly pulling back, only to flinch.

Her tightly blocked face felt slightly cool again as it met the air. Maybe it was because she hadn’t properly been able to breathe until now, but only after taking a deep breath did her reason return a little.

Her vision, which had been completely blocked from being too close, finally opened somewhat, but what she still saw was Rua’s chest.

It was wet.

With Nam Jinwoo’s tears, mucus, and maybe even… saliva?

Only after noticing that belatedly did her face flush bright red. Her nose had been blocked, so she had opened her mouth to breathe instead, but every time she inhaled it felt like something disastrous would happen, and whenever she exhaled she would end up blowing the moisture from inside her mouth between Rua’s breasts, so she had been unable to do anything.

Had she drooled while crying instead?

The upper part of Rua’s tightly fitted shirt was soaked with all those various fluids, sticking directly to her skin.

And underneath it, a dark black outline could be seen. Naturally so. If a shirt got wet, whatever was worn underneath would show through as well.

Black underwear—had Rua chosen it herself? Or had Soi or Chae-yi picked it out for her?

“……Are you okay?”

The thoughts that kept drifting somewhere strange barely returned to reality at Rua’s words.

“Ah, uh, y-yeah.”

Gathering together the last scraps of reason remaining in her head, she forcibly vibrated her vocal cords to answer.

Though her sanity itself already looked shattered into pieces too broken to restore.

After that, they exchanged a few more words, but honestly, Nam Jinwoo, who was barely clinging onto enough sanity to answer at all, didn’t really know how she had responded.

She just remembered becoming tearful again midway through answering, and Rua warmly patting her.

However—

“……Do you want to go to that café today? The one that sells ridiculously sweet desserts.”

Those final words remained clear.

Nam Jinwoo had just had the biggest secret she had hidden since entering the academy exposed.

But Rua didn’t care about that at all.

She was treating her just like before—

No, maybe even more kindly?

That realization relieved her so much she nearly burst into tears again, but she somehow barely managed to hold them back.

……Actually, it was because the expressions on Soi and Chae-yi’s faces were so terrifying that she judged she absolutely couldn’t stay hugged any longer here.

Perhaps the reason Nam Jinwoo managed to cling onto her sanity until the very end was some kind of survival instinct.

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Had Nam Jinwoo said the insoles made her look slightly taller than me?

I didn’t really know why she had come out today without putting the insoles in on purpose. Maybe she had already been planning to stop lying soon and the timing just coincidentally lined up, or maybe she had simply forgotten.

Well, even before this she probably forgot sometimes and we just didn’t notice. She normally wasn’t that much taller than me anyway. Even with the insoles she always walked around hunched over, so the effect was kind of ambiguous.

So even after removing the insoles, Nam Jinwoo didn’t suddenly become dramatically shorter than me or anything, meaning she still had to lower her head to bury her face in my chest.

……And thanks to that, Nam Jinwoo’s tears, mucus, and saliva soaked exactly the upper part of my chest.

You know, the thing people commonly call cleavage. There. Right above the bra line, to the point that the color and shape of the bra were clearly visible.

“S-Sorry……”

“……No, how could this possibly be your fault?”

It was my fault for hugging her without thinking.

Honestly, I’d partly thought of it like a cheat code too. Why? Because whenever Soi and Chae-yi buried their faces in my chest, they became all smiley and quiet for a while afterward.

And Hyeonji had been the same. Normally, whenever Soi, Chae-yi, and I lay together on the same bed, she would stand nearby glaring at me, making me feel guilty in all sorts of ways, but once I hugged her tightly she would just blush and quiet down.

And, well.

It did work, didn’t it? Nam Jinwoo stopped crying almost immediately.

……Hmm.

So that means she really is a girl after all, right?

Even though I’d been 99 percent sure, 99 percent “certainty” and 100 percent “confirmation” are still different things.

Before this, even if I knew, I still had to treat her like a guy, but now, um.

Should I treat her like a girl?

“Um…… so, Jinwoo?”

Like this?

“Ah, ah!? Uh, uh!?”

No, there’s no need to be that shocked.

I mean, the reason I call Soi, Chae-yi, and Hyeonji like that is because there’s no reason for friends to draw unnecessary lines between each other.

Well, it’s not like girls are forbidden from calling male friends just by name either.

But somehow, for me, it felt a little awkward.

“……Do you want to stay for dinner too today?”

“Ah, ah, okay!”

The way she answered energetically with her face dyed red,

Hmm.

I did think maybe she still needed to hide it a little better for now.

But I figured she was acting like this because she personally thought it was okay, so for the moment I decided to just leave it alone.

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Pub: 17 May 2026 08:16 UTC

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